The 2009 design challenge was one of the four nonhuman great apes: Gorilla, Orangutan, Chimpanzee, or Bonobo. The last few design challenges have been very open-ended, which has allowed artists to display great creativity in subject. For this next challenge, however, we decided to constrain the subject to emphasize implementation—and in particular, to challenge the artist’s creation of personality. As with some earlier challenges, there is a historical element to this challenge. One of the great classic origami figures is Yoshizawa’s Gorilla, folded from a humble Waterbomb Base, but when rendered by his hands, it had incredible personality and life. With 50 years now of design and folding techniques under our belts, could we live up to the standard set by the great master?
Indeed, the artists did, with astonishing variety and life. Two highlights for me were Nguyen Hung Cuong’s gorilla, which seemed to me to perfectly capture its subject character with distinct geometric lines, and Brian Chan’s chimpanzee, which expresses well its opinion of the other entries!
